Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations How many egg ribbons (YP) are you seeing?

And what's your water temp?

I've removed two yellow perch egg ribbons from my biggest pond so far as of April 1. Water temp this morning was about 56.5 F.


No egg ribbons yet in my broodstock pond.

I was going to ask if there was a magic temperature when the YP spawn. Seems I recall about 53 degrees F? Is that close? I measured 47 deg. and no sign of perch eggs yet. I check every day though.

Here is a little info from several sources.



Yellow perch must undergo an extended period of cooler water temperatures to insure

proper development of their reproductive organs. Hokanson (1977) stated that this chill

period should be a minimum of 160 days at 50 oF or below, though Kolkovski and

Dabrowski (1998) reported the successful off-season (September-October) spawning of

yellow perch held in culture tanks and exposed to a chill period of 60 days at 50 oF.



The first egg ribbons were collected from the tanks on March 27th, and

spawning in all tanks continued through April 21st. Many of the ribbons were in small

segments (< 8 in) and these were incubated in McDonald egg jars (Figure 2) instead of on

the incubation racks. Water temperatures in the tanks ranged from 53.5 - 63.0 oF in

March. The majority of egg ribbon releases (referred to as peak spawning) occurred

during two distinct time periods, April 2nd - 6th and April 11th – 20th. Water temperatures

during these peak periods ranged from 53.4 – 59.4 oF and 53.4 – 67.3 oF, respectively



Ponds were inspected

daily for the presence of egg ribbons deposited on the trees. The first sighting of egg

ribbons occurred on April 17th (water temperature approximately 62.5 oF). It is possible

that spawning was occurring previous to this point, as it was impossible to see any trees

that were anchored to the bottom of the pond.



The fertilized eggs hatch within 10

days if water temperatures are slowly raised from

spawning temperature (15¼C) to 20¼C in increments

of 1¼C per day.



Common name: Yellow perch, lake perch

Scientific name: Perca flavescens

Production potential: Moderate, due to slow growth of males

Marketing potential: Potential: High

Size: 3-5 fish per pound

Market: Food

Temperature requirements: Growing: 55-78 F

Spawning: 50 F

Lethal: NA

Feed requirements: Protein: 32-40%

Fat: NA

Spawning requirements: Fish spawn in the spring when water temperatures reach 50 F. Eggs are

contained within a gelatinous ribbon. A 0.5 lb female will produce 10,000-

20,000 eggs. Eggs hatch in approximately two weeks at 53 F. Spawns may be

obtained by stripping eggs from ripe females and mixing with milt from males in

a dry container, mixed thoroughly and then water is added to activate the

sperm and permit fertilization.

ewest - where was the location of that study?

This year in NW OH the spring warming temps after ice out have been earlier than usual. Air temp was 80 today Apr 1, a record. Ice out was Mar 11 and first YP eggs were laid eight days later Mar 19 - water temp 50F. Usually first eggs are similar to that mentioned my ewest above Mar 27-Apr 1. I do have a few YP that are exceptions and spawn several days earlier than the main group. Yesterday Mar 31, I removed 5 gallons of YP eggs. Another pondowner 45 mi directly west of me also removed 5 gallons of eggs earlier this week. I expect the main spawn in my pond to occur this week. My records show normally the main spawn for YP in my pond is Apri 2-10. When I hear the toads trilling, my YP spawn is basically done.
No aquashade in my pond. I have found blue dye in other ponds slows the water temp warming, esp deeper, and delays the spawn several days to a week or more which is not necessarily a bad thing.

Bill that was an Ohio State Univ survey. Also some Wisc data. A bit from Vig. - all from Aquanic.

http://www.aquanic.org/species/yellow-perch/documents/perchspawn.pdf

Cody says- OKay thanks for the info, similar region as NW OH. Central OH is about 7-10 days ahead of northern OH.

Great info! So much to learn!
Thanks

Here is my first egg ribbon from the broodstock pond where I planted about 200 males and 20 females. I moved it via a dip net to the production pond and added it to a small christmas tree.




Found another egg ribbon in the big pond about 3 feet long. Also found a dead 13 3/8's female yellow perch that had released most of her eggs and died in the process. She was close to the egg ribbon so it was probably her egg ribbon.

Cecil, I think we may lose some perch to natural mortality during spawning time. A few years back, we brought some perch into the lab for spawning studies, and stocked a big female with several males in each aquarium. Several of those big females died after spawning, which has always stuck in my mind. That may be a stressful time when we lose some of the older fish to natural mortality? Perch are a fish that can exhibit high natural mortality rates, even when not harvested by anglers.

Absolutely Dave. I have found stressed or dead females that apparently died in the spawning process or thereafter. I've seen some that appeared have tried to pass their eggs, but the eggs just didn't seem to want to come out completely. It appeared as if they partially were extruded and became water swelled, inhibiting the internal eggs from coming out.

I also think there may be in some cases, an attempt to reabsorb their eggs for whatever reason (in my case no males or few males present may be one reason), or perhaps a sudden drop in water temps. That is quite stressful also. At least I know it is with rainbow trout that reabsorb their eggs due to a lack of the correct spawning conditions.

Two more egg strands in the big pond this morning. Zip in the broodstock pond.

STILL waiting for my first YP spawn, I am starting to think my YP are sterile

Do you have brush, weeds, etc. in deeper water they may be dropping their eggs on?

I removed a 5 gallon bucket full of ribbons from my pond last week as well. I distributed them to two ponds at my fathers place, he wanted perch so hopefully he will have plenty!! I left a couple ribbons I could observe in the shallows and that is all, no hatch as of yesterday but the eggs show very visible white larva forming in them, easily seen from ten feet away.

I'm getting a little concerned. In the pond where I moved 20 females to drop their eggs to be fertilized by up to 200 males I've only collected one egg ribbon that I moved to the production pond. I've removed about 6 or 7 egg ribbons from my big pond that is primarily females though. The problem is there may not be any males in that pond or two tops, so they are most likely not to be fertilized.

no ribbons for me either. This will be the first spring for my perch (stocked last year). Getting anxious and excited.

When collecting a redistributing, do you have to rehang, or can you just put them in the new pond?

How old and or how large were your perch when you planted them?



Rehang to prevent the eggs from getting suffocated on the bottom. One needs to have good circulation around the eggs for optimum oxygen levels.

I just take a dip net, which I originally scooped them up with, and gently drop them on a deneedled Christmas tree in the production pond.

In addition to stumps and Christmas trees this year I pushed a 40 foot long tree into the pond near my dock to get the branches into deeper water than last year. If this doesnt work I give up. I am seeing quite a few large perch when I am feeding so I know they are in there

My point is they may be dropping their eggs in deeper water where you can't see them. Bill Cody and I put brush in less than 3 feet of water near the shoreline. One year before I used Aquashade, and had swimming pool clear water, I observed some egg strands laying on the bottom in the deepest water.

I just removed four or five strands from the big pond again that were distributed under the floating algae in some brush. Sneaky! Today I'm gong to rake out the floating algae mats so I don't miss any egg strands. I did see one of the smallmouth I planted last fall the other other day. And the toads are already laying their eggs.

Still no egg strands in the broodstock pond. I do remember that last time I did this they seemed somewhat delayed when I transferred fish. Perhaps they are delayed by the stress of moving or the new environment?

Cecil, just to deviate from topic a little, what would be the average growth of a 6 or 8 inch perch over the course of the summer and fall?

Pellet fed or natural feed? Male or female?

They would be pellet fed plus lots of natural forage, and both male and female. Would females grow that much faster than males?

In optimum temps (upper 70's most of the summer) into the fall, I would expect the 6 to 8 inch perch to be 8 to 10 inches by fall possibly a few female shooters slightly bigger. This is the females,however,that do grow faster than the males. I have 2 to 3 year old males of the same age that are 3 to 4 inches smaller than the females. They look like runts compared to the females.

Your soft water and low PH could stifle growth a little though.

For me once the perch get to about 11 or 12 inches they seem to grow about an inch a year under optimum conditions.

Let's see if Bill Cody (Dr. Perca) concurs.

Bill?

Cecil, has the growth rates for the YP pretty accurate. Every population has exceptions in that some are slower growing and some faster growing with the bulk of the population in the middle. Often the slowest growing ones become food because of their being vulnerable to predation for a longer time due to small size.

rexc - I would do some fishing to see if you have males and females. At this time of year the females should be obviously plump or swollen with eggs and males with free flowing milt. When angling now note that catching of males or females can be skewed due to feeding tendicies and location of each sex. As long as you can catch both sexes you will get some laying of fertile eggs. Most YP eggs are laid in water less than 3 ft deep but not always, exceptions always occur.

I have to have females and males I would think, I have added over 200 YP to the pond over a three year period. I will admit I have never caught a male with milt coming out of it, but I have caught a lot of really fat females. I have never seen a perch minnow either.

I am now transferring some perch from my neighbors overcrowded YP only pond in exchange for some LMB from my pond. I will have YP spawning eventually.

rexc - in transferring now you should see individuals with milt flowing with only slight pressure on the abdomen. If your pond is pretty weed free or weed free and you have good numbers of LMB including small LMB (3"-8") Then it does not supprise me you don't see 2"-4" YP. Small LMB luv them small YP maybe even as much as fatheads.